tag
I was walking by Pancho Villa’s, a taqueria in the Mission yesterday evening and looked through the big plate glass window. An older man in a brown vest playing a gut string guitar was walking among diners at tables singing and playing. It reminded me I’ve been in San Francisco a long time but once, years ago, that was an amazing sight. I considered it as a career, going back to New Hampshire and playing my guitar to folks at Warren’s Seafood as they cracked open lobster claws. I was teaching myself Hank Williams songs at the time.
I got to thinking back to how magic this city seemed to me when I had fresh eyes for it. Tagging was inspirational to me. People taking the alphabet and making it look totally new. I loved the asian character a lot of people wrote with. It was english but looked foreign. That was the melting pot for me. I came West to be a writer and here on the wall in front of the laundromat were writers. The burn to create was everywhere.
Of course now I hate tagging. I’ve seen too many things get ugly from it. It attacks the poor. It isn’t a place of freedom, it is just another set of rules. Formalized.
This city used to be so big to me. I don’t love it any less for letting me get to know it.